The electricals retailer Dixons is hanging on to its stores in Greece, although it admitted the Kotsovolos chain was now worthless in book-keeping terms.

The intensifying crisis in the eurozone has prompted other international companies to pull the plug on countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain. Last week, Carrefour said it was leaving Greece, and the no-frills airline easyJet has said it is closing its base in Madrid.

Sebastian James, in his first outing as the new Dixons chief executive since he started in February, said Kotsovolos was a good business in a bad market, where electricals sales had tumbled 55% in the last three years. "One day it is going to be a great business again," he said.

Losses in southern Europe, which takes in Greece, Italy and Turkey, nearly doubled to £30.4m in the year to 28 April, with like-for-like sales down 8%. James said it had run various models and was confident Kotsovolos, which is the market leader, could cope with a financial shock such as Greece leaving the euro, although the same was not true for all its rivals, he said, potentially leaving the chain in an even stronger position. He also said the firm had no plans to leave Italy, where Unieuro is the No 2 chain. With fewer big chains and online retailing in its infancy, James said there was an opportunity to carve out a profitable niche. The company was reporting a 17% fall in underlying profits to £70.8m, which James said was a "not a bad result given the economic hurricanes that have been swirling around southern Europe".

The group recorded a pre-tax loss of £118.8m after nearly £190m of accounting charges relating to the goodwill of its chains in southern Europe and the poorly performing PIXmania website. It cut the carrying value of the Italian and Greek chains by £131.1m and by £36.5m respectively, which James said meant there was now just £25m of goodwill attached to Unieuro and nothing associated with Kotsovolos.

Just under half of Dixon's £8.2bn turnover comes from the domestic market, where it trades as PC World and Currys, and there were signs of a pick up in sales as Britons treated themselves to new TVs ready for Euro 2012. Although UK like-for-like sales for this year finished down 4%, there was a marked improvement in the fourth quarter: growth of 8%, a strong trend that had continued in the new financial year. Despite the fillip there was "no evidence" of improving consumer confidence, James said.

James, who took over from John Browett, said the retailer would focus its efforts on out-of-town retail parks where increasingly it operates hybrid Currys and PC World stores that are more profitable. The group is aiming to make cost-savings of £90m over the next two years.

The company has 557 UK stores but James wants to get that down to between 400 and 420, with high street stores, nearly 100 of them, the biggest casualties. He said many were too small with the most successful ones, dubbed "urban toy shops", the ones that sold high-end gadgets in prime shopping locations such as London's Westfield mega mall. The retailer needed only between 30 and 40 high street stores, he said, adding: "The high street will no longer so much be for players like us, it'll be for restaurants and leisure. I really hope they can be fun, buzzy places, but they might not be where people go to shop."

The company's shares, which have more than doubled in value in the last six months, closed up more than 7% at 17.19p. The retailer halved its debt to £104m during the year and said it was confident it could repay £160m of bonds due in the autumn. Panmure Gordon analyst Philip Dorgan said Dixons now looked like a "recovery story": "We believe that the company is improving its product, its stores and its operations, and that it will repay its bonds this year."